Conticribra weissflogii (Grunow) Stachura-Suchoples & D.M. Williams, Eur. J. Phycol. 44: 482. 2009.

Bilous, Olena P., Genkal, Sergey I., Zimmermann, Jonas, Kusber, Wolf-Henning & Jahn, Regine, 2021, Centric diatom diversity in the lower part of the Southern Bug river (Ukraine): the transitional zone at Mykolaiv city, PhytoKeys 178, pp. 31-69 : 31

Conticribra weissflogii (Grunow) Stachura-Suchoples & D.M. Williams, Eur. J. Phycol. 44: 482. 2009.

Basionym.

Micropodiscus weissflogii Grunow in Van Heurck., 1885.

Synonyms.

Eupodiscus weissflogii Grunow, nom. inval., Eupodiscus weissflogii (Grunow) De Toni, Thalassiosira weissflogii (Grunow) G.A. Fryxell & Hasle

Morphological description.

The frustule has the form of a drum, valves are almost flat, diameter 24.4-26.6 μm, 8-10 marginal processes in 10 μm, 2-5 central processes (Fig. 4E ).

Ecology.

Conticribra weissflogii is a planktonic diatom, from marine and brackish-water environments that also may occur in lacustric and riverine waters. It is reported to occur in a wide range of salinity 2-26‰ (representing oligohalobs to polyhalobs), especially at salinities above 5‰ ( Stachura-Suchoples and Kulikovskiy 2014). This taxon tends to increase in population density with rising temperature ( Lomas and Glibert 1999) as well as with eutrophication ( Zheng et al. 2016). It is also known to grow in waters with relatively high pH, around 8-9.4 ( Sala 1997).

Distribution.

This centric taxon appeared at the Mykolaiv site in the Southern Bug River; for Ukraine it was mentioned for the first time in our previous investigation (Table 1 ; Genkal and Bilous 2015), afterwards it was found in the tributaries of Dnipro in eastern and central parts of the country ( Berezovskaya 2019; Kryvosheia and Kapustin 2019).

This is a widely distributed species: Europe, Asia, America (North and South), Africa, Australia and New Zealand; it was even found in Lake Baikal, also in the oceans over the world ( Stachura-Suchoples and Kulikovskiy 2014; Genkal et al. 2020).

Figures

Figure 4. SEM (A, B and E-H) and LM (C, D) images of species found in the transitional zone at Mykolaiv city: A-D Pleurosira laevis A, C valve views with arrows shown the ocelli B girdle view E Conticribra weissflogii, valve view with arrows shown central and marginal fultoportulae F Thalassiosira incerta, valve view with arrow shown central fultoportulae G Thalassiosira faurii, valve view H Minidiscus proschkinae, valve view with arrow in the centre shown central fultoportula, and closer to the edge - rimoportula. Scale bars: 10 μm (C-G); 30 μm (A); 50 μm (B); 3 μm (H).